Let me guess, it was a case of 'Not in My Backyard!!'?.
OH, yeah. NIMBY plus furrow-browed doomcasting about black beaches, funeral pyres of dead sea birds -- you know, the usual Exxon Valdez times 37 kind of scare-hype that the MSM just laps up and serves hot to the mind-numbed public.
Oh, and lest I forget, there are those multi-million-dollar properties that overlook the coastline. Can't have the rich and (in)famous getting an eyeful of an oil rig out there. Why, they might have a fatal conniption, pop a nut, or blow out a sphincter bearing -- or all three. Oh, the HORROR!